Bad blood? What happened to the blood drive?

Art Boettge, staff writer

Twice a year at Edina High School, the Student Council teams up with the American Red Cross. Their goal: to provide an opportunity for students to help save lives by allowing those who are aged 16 and older to donate blood. Although the blood drive was originally scheduled for Oct. 29, it was later postponed twice and may be inconvenient for some donors, but Student Council still hopes to make this another great blood drive. 

“It got pushed back over a month, actually, the original plan was initially late October, but we had to push it to mid-December because of a few complications,” junior Student Council member Max Optiz said. Because the soccer state semifinals were scheduled for the same day as the blood drive, Student Council chose to contact the Red Cross to postpone the event to November 5, with Red Cross cancelling that date as well. “They canceled on Dec. 5, and pushed it to Dec. 16, which is obviously a big pushback, but it’s as soon as we could get it,” Optiz said. 

Despite the long pushback, student council members are still hopeful that the blood drive will remain a success. “We hope students will still be as enthusiastic about it. The hype kind of had to be killed for it this month, but we hope that people get excited for it when it comes around again,” Optiz said.

Students who are currently signed up will remain signed up. “I would say it’s kind of weird because everyone already got hyped about it in the week leading up to it, but as long as StudCo does a good job of getting everyone into it again when the time comes, I think it should still be good” senior Miles Harmening said.  Additionally, Student Council offers another blood drive that usually occurs in the spring. Despite the somewhat unusual time of the blood drive, students can still expect to see Red Cross trucks preparing for the blood drive on Dec. 16.